1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a movement support apparatus, a movement support method, and a driving support system including a movement support function.
2. Description of Related Art
As a vehicle having plural driving modes, a hybrid vehicle is known which uses an internal combustion engine and a motor as a drive source in parallel. The hybrid vehicle has a first mode (HV mode) in which only the internal combustion engine is used or the internal combustion engine and the motor are simultaneously used and a second mode (EV mode) in which the internal combustion engine is stopped and only the motor is used as the plural driving modes. A movement support apparatus including a navigation system mounted in the hybrid vehicle calculates a driving route from a current location to a destination on the basis of map information or road traffic information, or the like and performs supports of selecting a driving mode to be applied to sections into which the driving route is partitioned. For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2009-12605 (JP 2009-12605 A) describes an example of a controller of the vehicle having the movement support function.
However, in the controller of the vehicle described in JP 2009-12605 A, the driving mode of each section of the driving route is set in consideration of balancing energy consumption during the entire driving route so that a state of charge of a battery, which is a secondary battery, at the destination approaches the lower limit. However, in the energy balance of the entire driving route, collecting regenerative energy in a downward slope is included. For this reason, when the remaining amount of the battery is expected to be increased by collecting the regenerative energy and travelling in an EV mode is set up, the remaining amount of the battery up to a section before a section in which the regenerative energy is able to be collected may reach a lower limit value, and thus it is difficult to travel in the subsequent section in the EV mode.
This problem is common in an apparatus or a method of allocating a driving mode in a vehicle with plural driving modes having different energy balances.